Thread: Houston immigration official says FBI stalled terror probe

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory. ... an/3210697

June 4, 2005, 3:54AM

Houston immigration official says FBI stalled terror probe
Senator agrees and seeks review of delay in wiretap for suspect here
By MICHAEL HEDGES
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The head of Houston's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office has accused the FBI of stalling a federal investigation into a terrorist fund-raising organization, officials said Friday.

Joe Webber, special agent in charge of ICE's office in Houston, told Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, that the FBI had delayed for four months his efforts to obtain a wiretap authorization in an investigation involving an individual in Houston suspected of terrorist ties and a person designated a terrorist by U.S. intelligence agencies.

On Friday, Grassley wrote U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, seeking a joint investigation. The FBI is an agency within the Justice Department, and ICE is part of the Homeland Security Department.

"These are serious allegations that deserve high-level attention and a thorough review. Instead, they have largely been ignored," Grassley wrote.

"It appears that the FBI needlessly delayed a Title III wiretap application for four months, thus failing to capture communications with a known terrorist," Grassley wrote.

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

However, the FBI and ICE released a joint statement.

"Any and all terrorism leads are aggressively pursued by law enforcement authorities," the statement said. "Terrorism investigations by their nature are large in scope, multijurisdictional and complex. There is often healthy debate about the best investigative approach to complex terrorism matters, but never at the expense of public safety or national security."

Webber is a veteran agent who was in charge of the U.S. Customs office in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and narrowly escaped when the terrorist attacks damaged his building next to the World Trade Center.

Officials said that ICE agents had collected evidence that a Houston-area man had ties to al-Qaida and might be raising money for terrorists.

They said the agency could document calls to a person designated a terrorist but could not listen in on those calls until a phone tap was approved.

Field agents must send requests for wiretaps and other surveillance in terrorism investigations to FBI headquarters for approval. After the FBI review, a federal judge makes the final determination.

michael.hedges@chron.com

FIRE NOW any person involved in that absurd "joint statement" and any person who impeded this wiretap.

IF the federal government can frisk my breasts boarding a plane, then it has the jurisdiction to wiretap a "known terrorist" Fund Raiser!!

MY GOD PEOPLE.....what are they trying to do....set us up for another 9/11 to force Open Borders Through???

What were they trying to figure out.....how to maneuver that their big ass budget operation in DC caught them instead of the local guys in Houston or hoping the guy gets enough money to do whatever he's planning?

Traitors!!

THIS FBI is why we didn't know the planes were coming on 9/11!!

OUR FBI needs to be RE-Americanized!!

REPATRIATE THE FBI!!

AND, I suppose our Presidio is still sleeping like a baby at 9 pm?

God, Deliver ME from this TOTAL NONSENSE!!